When Colleen went into the office the next Monday, Dan's office was empty. His nameplate had been removed. It was like he'd never existed.

She took the elevator up to McCoy's floor. When she tapped on his door, he looked up from the page he was filling with notes and grinned. "Come in, Mrs James."

Colleen took the chair she'd become used to sitting in during the weeks they'd worked together, at the small table beside his desk. "Dan really is gone."

"Gone a very long way away," McCoy said smugly.

"What did you do?"

McCoy leaned sideways and took a file from the bookcase. He took out a piece of paper. "I showed him a copy of your police complaint." Another page followed the first. "And the indictment for the Grand Jury, all filled in and ready to go. I reminded him that Sally Bell has, to date, a perfect record when it comes to getting true bills out of our fellow citizens. She has a pretty good record when it comes to trial, too. I suggested he might like to look outside the jurisdiction for employment." McCoy grinned again. "And then Adam came in and thanked him for all his hard work and handed him a reference and a job offer in Phoenix. Dan raised the white flag."

Colleen studied the pages. The People charge that Daniel James did, on multiple occasions, strike Colleen James and cause injury. That was not what she'd told the police, she was almost sure, but it was sort of what had happened, translated into legalese. Those occasions include, but are not limited to … a list of dates going back to the beginning of the year. "I don't remember those dates. I didn't tell the police any dates."

"Well, I've been keeping a list, Mrs James, of the times you fell down the stairs or walked into a door." He reached into his desk drawer. Colleen expected him to produce a bottle but instead he took out a notebook and flipped it open. "Contemporaneous notes, all dated, made by a concerned colleague. Evidentiarily impeccable. I showed them to Ben Stone down the hall every time, too, and he'd testify to that, if the defense tried to argue I'd made them up afterward and lied about it." McCoy closed the notebook. "I couldn't testify as to how you received those bruises I observed, of course. But Sally would have been sure to ask me, as a prosecutor with considerable experience, what my expert opinion was, and I would have been sure to answer before the judge could uphold any defense objection. Being a witness would have meant I couldn't prosecute him personally, but Sally's pretty good, and Dan knew I would have been holding her coat."

Since the beginning of the year. McCoy had been planning, had been preparing to prosecute Dan since the beginning of the year. "You didn't ask me. If I wanted to press charges. If I wanted to testify. You would have made me — tell everyone. Everyone."

"I would never have made you take the stand," McCoy said quickly. "Mrs James. I would never have put you through a trial."

"Then why did you take all those notes?" she cried. "Why did you write it all down if you weren't planning all along to prosecute him?"

McCoy steepled his hands and regarded her steadily over the top of them. "So you would have the option. These cases are hard to try, Mrs James. Neighbors don't want to get involved. Medical records, if there are any, don't tell the whole story. That's what these sons-of-bitches rely on, that and the fact that their victims blame themselves. If you had wanted to have him charged, I wanted to give you the best possible chance — but I would never have forced it on you."

Colleen shook her head. "And what if he hadn't taken the job? What if he'd decided to fight the charges? You would have had to put me up before the Grand Jury, and at the trial, and — "

"If he hadn't taken the job," McCoy said steadily, "I would have had to find a different way to skin this particular cat. But I knew he'd take the deal. Cowards always do."

"And what if he — if he comes back?"

"I might have explained to him that any contact with you, by phone, mail or in person, would be intimidation and therefore a continuation of his previous offenses. Which would immediately reset the clock on the statute of limitations. I might have suggested that if you were to so much as glimpse him on the street at any time for the rest of your life, I would make it my personal mission to put him in jail. I might have implied that a former employee of the DA's Office wouldn't find it comfortable, being incarcerated with men he'd helped put away."

"Is any of that true?"

McCoy shrugged. "We'd be in uncharted waters on statue of limitations. But I think I could make a fairly convincing argument to the right judge." He paused. "As for putting him in jail if he so much as thinks about coming near you again, that is absolutely true. And if he's stupid enough to try it, security knows he's not to be allowed into the building and the mail-room knows that nothing he sends to you is to be delivered. Your phone extension has been changed and the switchboard will not put through any calls he makes. When you find a new apartment, he won't know where it is. He's gone, Mrs James. You will never see him or hear from him again."

She nodded. "I guess … thank you. I can't quite believe it, but thank you."

"I know it doesn't feel as if it's true," McCoy said gently, "but it is. And you'll know it is, in time. You're safe, and eventually, Mrs James, you'll feel that way."

Mrs James. Mrs James was Dan's wife. Mrs James was afraid to go home and afraid to leave. Mrs James was not who Colleen was going to be, anymore, thanks to Jack McCoy. "It's … it's Ms," she said. "Ms Petraky." It sounded right, her maiden name. It sounded like a woman who would get her own apartment, and pay her own bills, and possibly even learn to drive a car.

Slight lift of an eyebrow, and then McCoy stretched across the desk, holding out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Ms Petraky."

Colleen took McCoy's hand and shook it. "Pleased to be met."